


starving for it

by sublime_jumbles



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Chubby Gansey, Comfort Eating, Gen, Light Angst, Overeating, Pre-Canon, Stress Eating, Suffering, Unrequited Lust, Weight Gain, everyone has a big fat crush on Gansey, implied PTSD, ish??????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 03:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12379881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sublime_jumbles/pseuds/sublime_jumbles
Summary: Gansey had pulled his polo over his head, and Adam had caught an eyeful of creamy skin, the two dimples at the small of Gansey’s back, the curve of his sides over his waistband. He bit down hard on his lower lip, and then harder as Gansey turned just enough for Adam to see the roll of his stomach, the red streaks of stretch marks disappearing like a meteor shower down his hip. He’d pulled the thin fabric of his T-shirt away from his stomach, and Adam had swallowed hard, guilt dripping gold down his throat.





	starving for it

**Author's Note:**

> many many thanks to wy and jern for beta services!! and shout-out to wreckingthefinite for yelling about this with me too. :)

Gansey was eating his seventh slice of pizza, and the trig problems in front of Adam were starting to blur.

He’d been trying to keep his eyes on his work, talk himself through the rest of his equations without looking up automatically whenever he saw Gansey reach for the pizza box in his periphery. He'd managed to keep himself from looking this time, but after the movement was the sound of Gansey talking to Ronan through a mouthful of pizza, and the little hum of pleasure Gansey sometimes gave when he swallowed, and the muffled little _urp_ that was Gansey catching a belch politely in his fist, and each of these pushed Adam a little closer to boiling.

He had helped Gansey carry the pizzas - Gansey had insisted on three - in through the thrashing rain, and he had bitten his lip and watched Gansey’s ass jiggle as he took the stairs up to the second floor of Monmouth. He had stood behind him, balancing all three damp boxes in his hands as Gansey rifled through his pockets for his keys and he had catalogued the way Gansey’s soaked aquamarine polo clung to the plump curves of his sides, stuck to the small of his back, and he had exhaled and closed his eyes until he heard the door open.

And then he’d set the pizzas on the table near the couch and turned around to see Gansey running a hand through his hair, shirt clinging mercilessly to his stomach, grinning like sprinting through the rain with three pizzas had been some kind of grand adventure.

“Christ, I’m drenched,” he’d said mildly, and Adam had watched as, out of habit, he went to dry the glasses he wasn’t wearing. He’d run his hand through his hair again instead, the transition just short of seamless. “Mind if I change? I’ll be fast.”

“Nope,” Adam had said, apprehension blooming in his chest as Gansey turned toward the bureau shoved in the corner closest to his bed. Adam had gripped the straps of his backpack, wiggling one finger into the hole at the seam of the left one.

“Do you want a dry shirt?” Gansey had asked, turning back, and Adam had shaken his head. The idea of swimming in one of Gansey’s shirts - having tangible proof of how much _bigger_ it was than Adam’s own - had made him dizzy.

“I'm fine,” he’d said, too fast, and Gansey had cocked his head.

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.” Adam had dropped his bag in front of the couch with a thunk, and Gansey had taken that as a final answer and turned back to his bureau. Adam had watched him pull out an undershirt and felt something crumble below his ribs.

He wouldn’t look, he'd told himself. Every glance he stole at Gansey felt just that - stolen, and filthy, and poor. Gansey was his friend, his _best_ friend probably, and he shouldn’t -

Adam Parrish was a creature of painstakingly tamed desires, of quietly collected glances, of stubbornly ground-down yearnings. He was also stubborn, and desirous, and prone to glancing at things he would not allow himself to have.

So he looked anyway.

Gansey had pulled his polo over his head, and Adam had caught an eyeful of creamy skin, the two dimples at the small of Gansey’s back, the curve of his sides over his waistband. He bit down hard on his lower lip, and then harder as Gansey turned just enough for Adam to see the roll of his stomach, the red streaks of stretch marks disappearing like a meteor shower down his hip. He’d pulled the thin fabric of his T-shirt away from his stomach, and Adam had swallowed hard, guilt dripping gold down his throat.

Then Gansey had shucked his cargo shorts, too, and Adam had thrown himself onto the floor beside his backpack, frustrated with himself for wanting to see that kind of proof of indulgence so badly. The cold damp of his T-shirt prickled at him, a reminder that wherever Gansey was, Adam was somewhere below.

He was still there now, books and papers spread around him like a protective shield, doing his damnedest to keep his focus. Gansey had spread himself out on the couch above him, scribbling notes in his journal. He'd put on a pair of Aglionby athletic shorts with his T-shirt, and Adam fervently kept his eyes off the way they sat low on his thick hips, the waistband hidden in the front where his stomach crept over it. Ronan, who had ventured out of his room at the smell of pizza, was tucked at the other end of the couch. He was playing with the little tape recorder Gansey had purchased to listen for spirits, whistling what sounded like Irish jigs and then playing them back to beatbox over them. It was tremendously distracting on top of everything else, and Adam’s trig homework was suffering.

Adam had tried to leave more than an hour ago, but Gansey had taken one look at the rain and lightning still raging outside and announced that there was no way Adam was biking home in that kind of weather.

“Probably not safe to drive, either,” he'd said, pointedly hooking his legs over Ronan’s on the couch. “Visibility’s probably a nightmare.”

Ronan had scowled but stayed put, sinking lower into his slouch. But as the evening rolled on, he'd relaxed into it, until they were comfortably draped over each other in a manner that made it itchily obvious to Adam that this was their space, that they were used to _belonging_ here.

Noah was lying on the musty area rug a few feet from Adam, coloring in the spaces inside the letters on the title page of Ronan’s Latin textbook and humming under his breath. His untucked shirt and Aglionby sweater had rucked up a little against the rug, and a swathe of soft white stomach was visible where it pushed over the tight waistband of his skinny jeans. Adam stared at it as furtively as he could, trying to examine himself for the same gnawing, twisting desire he felt when he looked at Gansey, but - nothing.

Because Gansey was _different_ , and the hard, invariable truth of that bit down wryly on Adam. Gansey was different in ways measurable and immeasurable, visible and invisible, imitable but unattainable.

On Noah, that softness was puppy fat. He might grow out of it if he got any taller, but Adam knew that wasn't the case for Gansey - at least, not anymore. Adam _knew_ ; he'd seen it happen.

When he'd met Gansey, almost eighteen months ago now, Gansey had looked like Noah - round baby cheeks, jawline smudged with softness, a little push of belly that could have just as easily been an incidental fold of his Aglionby sweater. But over the first six months of their friendship, Adam had watched in silent, flammable fascination as Gansey had grown rounder and softer, listened in abject bewilderment as Gansey cheerfully blamed it on the American food he’d missed while he was abroad. Crew had firmed his arms and shoulders some, but it didn't slim any of the substantial belly he'd gained, and Adam, who had never in his life seen anyone treat food the way Gansey did, began to realize that there existed stupid, infuriating kinds of suffering of which he had not heretofore been aware.

Food, for Gansey, wasn’t necessarily a means to an end, unless the end was pleasure. Adam had studied this particular phenomenon extensively, and although he knew, in a logical way, that sensations like hunger and want operated differently when you lived in the realm of the unimaginably wealthy, it did not become less shocking to see it played out over and over. No matter how gradually he normalized it, inasmuch as that it was normal for _Gansey_ , it always came with a fresh pang of incredulity that yanked Adam back to the hard red Henrietta dirt. _Of course this will never feel normal to_ you _._

There was a flash of white movement in Adam’s periphery, and he made himself finish the trig problem he was working on before glancing over to see what was going on. Gansey and Ronan were shuffling around the pizzas, moving the box with the last full pie on top of the two empty ones. Adam tried not to stare. He’d had a couple of slices, not enough to seem greedy or burdensome or to even fill him up, but he couldn’t shake the knowledge of how long that much pizza would last him. Three pizzas, eight slices each - in theory it could keep him fed for at least four days.

He’d watched - or done his best not to watch - Gansey eat more than a full day’s worth of Adam-meals in one sitting. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, but the prick of interest swooped low in his stomach, and no matter how hard he tried to force it out, it lingered. He couldn’t imagine eating that much without parceling it out in his mind to make it last as long as possible. He could barely imagine having a full stomach more than two days in a row, could barely remember a day that he hadn’t gone to bed hungry. But Gansey had never had to think about that - never had to worry where his next meal was coming from, or if it would come at all. He’d never had to do more than ask or order or swipe a credit card.

Food was Gansey’s means to an end if the end was pleasure, but Adam’s end was always survival.

An end that was being threatened right now, he thought, brain buzzing in and out of trig problems. He heard Noah say something to his right, and he heard the jagged edge of Ronan’s laugh, and he heard Gansey respond around a mouthful of cheese and avocado. Adam hadn’t seen Noah eat anything, he realized, but then his attention hadn’t been laser-focused in Noah’s direction. Noah probably wouldn’t think twice about eating more than he needed either, Adam thought. Noah might have been Aglionby more quietly than Ronan or Gansey, but he was still Aglionby.

He chanced a glance upward, and saw that Gansey had melted further onto Ronan’s legs, slouched down against the arm of the couch. He was hefting his journal with one hand, studying what looked like a photocopy of a page from a very old book, and thumbing at his lower lip with the other, his stomach piled in his lap beneath his snug T-shirt. The floor lamp beside the couch lit him up gold, and Adam was struck, as he was periodically, by how handsome he was. Even without his weird, knotted-up feelings about the way Gansey wore the evidence of his excess, he couldn’t quite quiet the way Gansey made him feel sometimes, wanted and humming and necessary. The aristocratic structure of his face hadn’t been lost as he gained weight, just softened, and privately - not weirdly, he maintained - Adam thought it made Gansey look more like himself, less like the glossy, public version of Gansey he hid behind.

If that other Gansey had a physical form, Adam thought, he’d be unattainably ab-laden, swimsuit-ready, slick with a veneer of charm. But the real Gansey - earnest and willing, indulgent and stubborn - was softer, realer, more human than that tight little box allowed for, and part of Adam wondered if Gansey kept the weight on to remind himself that he _wasn't_ that photo-finish, unattainably perfect Gansey.

And that fascinated Adam too - Gansey’s comfort with his body, the confidence he carried it with. But then Gansey never had to be conscious of how much space he occupied - the world made room for boys like Gansey, no matter how wide their hips got. The Ganseys probably knew dozens of dietitians and specialists and trainers who could have whipped him back into shape if he'd wanted to, but Gansey seemed content to exist with his extra … however many pounds. He didn’t blush or wince when it was called attention to, didn’t have any qualms about taking his shirt off in front of any of them. He didn't flinch when Ronan or Noah pinched and poked at his sides or his stomach, just rolled his eyes with varying degrees of amusement or exasperation depending on which one of them it was and poked them back. It was almost as if he were unaware that extra weight usually carried a stigma, and Adam thought that was privilege speaking, too - maybe if you were that wealthy, that was another thing that couldn’t touch you.

Adam didn't resent his confidence - it just rankled, an itchy tag in a T-shirt he could never take off. Adam longed for that comfort, that kind of ownership. If he could feel even a fraction as unselfconscious about _anything_ as Gansey did about his body _-_ Adam knew his own sense of value and priority was probably warped, but there were days he thought he might give his own two eyes just to feel _comfortable_.

“There's still pizza, Adam,” said Gansey from his perch, lowering his journal to rest on his thighs.

Adam tipped his head down to his homework guiltily. “I'm okay.”

“No one wants your avocado, geezer,” said Ronan, poking at Gansey’s calves in his lap.

“You could pick it off,” Gansey protested, nudging at Ronan with a socked foot.

“Ruins the experience,” said Ronan.

Gansey rolled his eyes. “Noah, do you want any?”

Noah looked up from Ronan’s textbook and gave Gansey a long-suffering look. “You know I don't.”

Noah didn't like eating in front of people, as far as Adam could gather from the way he whined about it whenever pressed, and that, Adam understood. He didn't know what Noah’s reasoning was, but years of scraping meals together from nothing had warped into a hypersensitive kind of embarrassment when it came to eating in front of anyone. He hated the shame of pulling a thin sandwich from his backpack while his classmates ate from Aglionby’s expensive meal plan or the multitude of fast food restaurants strategically placed near campus. He hated that he felt the need to push a few dollars at Gansey every time they went to Nino’s to cover his meager share of the pizza, that those few dollars were pocket change to Gansey and the difference between satiety and starvation to Adam. _I’m starving_ , he’d heard Gansey announce so many times over the past eighteen months, after going an excruciating two or three hours without food, and only recently had Adam begun to bristle at it a little less.

Gansey shrugged in Noah’s direction and picked up another slice of pizza. Adam sucked in a breath through his teeth.

He smoldered on the rug, grinding his pencil into the paper as he listened to Gansey make his way through the remaining pizza. The crush of the rain against the windows had lessened to a steady slash, punctuated by the soft scratch of pencils and the creative Latin obscenities Ronan was now muttering into the recorder. Adam was close enough to hear Gansey’s breathing, heavier now than when he'd begun to eat. It infuriated Adam. He wanted to demand how Gansey could lie there, already indulged, and keep indulging. He wanted to ask how it was so easy. He wanted to ask him what made him think he deserved all that. He wanted to push slice after slice of pizza into Gansey’s mouth until he couldn't eat any more. He wanted to grab a handful of his stomach to see how that excess felt in hand. He wanted to splay his hand across the expanse of Gansey’s stomach when it was stretched as full as it could get. He wanted to hear how heavy his breathing would be then. He wanted to hear him whine.

He snapped the tip of his pencil against the paper.

In his periphery, Ronan, instead of Gansey, reached for the pizza box. As invisibly as he could, Adam followed the movement with his eyes.

Ronan took the last slice out of the box and glanced over at Gansey, who was halfway through a slice of avocado, his journal propped open against one thigh so he could make notes in it. As Adam watched, Ronan took a bite of his own slice, licked his lips, and glanced at Gansey again. Adam could feel something like static electricity rolling off Ronan, and he kept his eyes on him as Ronan sat back and watched Gansey finish his slice of pizza.

Gansey swallowed, exhaled, and sloppily caught a burp in his fist. A muscle jumped in Ronan’s jaw, and Adam watched his free hand curl into a fist as Gansey leaned forward, one hand on his stomach, and flipped the lid of the pizza box open. He sat back when he realized it was empty, and Adam swallowed hard.

Wordlessly, Ronan offered Gansey his own slice of pizza, single bite taken out of it.

“Are you sure?” said Gansey, and sat forward to burp again. Adam held himself still and watched Ronan nod.

“It’s avocado anyway,” he said, shoving the slice toward Gansey. “Just eat it.”

Gansey shrugged, settling back against the arm of the couch. “Thanks.”

As Ronan slouched back onto his side of the couch, he caught Adam watching, and a cold slip of panic ran through Adam’s stomach. But Ronan just set his jaw, two spots of color rising high in his cheeks, and Adam recognized something hungry and gnawing in his gaze. It took a moment longer to realize that Ronan looked the way Adam felt, watching the boundlessness of Gansey’s appetite unfold before them.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, Ronan was still watching him like maybe he recognized that frustration and fascination in Adam, too. He gave Adam a quick, clipped nod, then brought his soda can to his lips and tilted it back until it was empty.

Gansey finished Ronan’s pizza, slumping down further once he'd swallowed the last bite so he could tip his head back over the arm. He exhaled heavily, adjusting his legs in Ronan’s lap, and took several long, deep breaths. Ronan raised his wrist to his mouth and bit at his leather bands, carefully avoiding Adam’s eyes. Adam was grateful there was so much space between them; he could feel heat coming off Ronan in waves, and he, Adam, felt on the verge of ignition. If they got any closer Adam was sure they'd both catch fire.

“Ronan,” said Gansey, “if you get another soda, can you get me the ice cream from the freezer?”

Adam’s head jerked up without any input from his brain.

“Get your thunder thighs off me and I will,” said Ronan, shoving at Gansey’s legs across his lap, and Gansey obliged, and Adam scoured his face for evidence that the descriptor had hurt, but as usual, he came up empty.

Ronan hauled himself up and disappeared into the kitchen/bathroom/laundry, and Adam waited a moment before saying, “Are you still hungry?”

“Hmm?” said Gansey, looking up from his journal. One hand still rested on his stomach, and he rubbed at it idly, the thin fabric of his t-shirt wrinkling.

Adam felt his face heat. “I said - are you really still hungry?”

Gansey looked genuinely puzzled, which both infuriated and fascinated Adam. “No, I just want ice cream.”

He watched Adam like he was aware this might be the wrong answer, but wasn’t sure of what the right one might be.

“Okay,” said Adam, and Noah rolled onto his back beside him to stage-whisper, “It’s because he's anxious.”

“Noah,” said Gansey, annoyed. He stifled another burp in his hand, and Noah shrugged.

Ronan returned bearing a quart tub of ice cream and two soda cans, one of which he tossed to Adam. Adam caught it warily. He still wasn't completely sure if Ronan liked him, or tolerated him, or tolerated him because Gansey liked him, or liked him because Adam would do things with him that Gansey on his own wouldn't tolerate.

“Here,” Ronan said, dropping the ice cream and a spoon onto Gansey’s stomach. Gansey groaned, and Adam felt something sharpen in his own stomach. The mundanity of the quart container of ice cream surprised him; he'd been expecting one of the tiny, colorful, no-way-it’s-worth-six-dollars pints of Ben & Jerry’s in some overindulgent flavor. This was just a plain quart of generic mint cookie, and Gansey pried the lid off and settled it on his chest, before his stomach began to curve out. He scooped out a heaping spoonful and flipped a page in his journal, and hiccuped gently before tucking the ice cream into his mouth.

Ronan flopped down on the rug and propped himself against the couch, long legs splaying between Adam and Noah. He grabbed the recorder off the couch and held it out to Noah like a newscaster. “Here, help Dick practice and pretend you’re dead.”

Noah rolled back over onto his belly to speak into it properly. “Seven years ago,” he said solemnly, “I was murdered with a skateboard.”

Ronan laughed, throaty and kicking. “Of course you fuckin’ were.”

Adam glanced up to see if Gansey had laughed, too, but he was fixed on something in his notebook. Adam squinted: a patch of woods? A map had been pasted in next to it, covered in notes in Gansey’s handwriting, a thick black _x_ scrawled low on the page, bisecting the path of the ley line. The container of ice cream was still cradled in his lap, and he had the spoon upside down in his mouth, sucking a mouthful of mint cookie off it. As Adam watched, he dug out another heaping spoonful and stuck it into his mouth, then another. He was still gazing at the same spread in his journal, but when Adam shifted his position a little, he could see that Gansey wasn’t staring at the page - he was just staring, eyes hollow and dead.

Adam watched him for too long, but Gansey didn't notice. He was still shoveling ice cream into his mouth, the movement mechanical, but the longer Adam observed, the more Gansey’s empty eyes unnerved him. He tried to catch Ronan’s gaze, unsure of the protocol for when Gansey went dark like this, _if_ there was any protocol. Adam had seen Gansey pull on mask over mask to disguise his own disintegration, but he'd never seen him allow the mask to slip off completely.

Ronan was still bantering with Noah about his supposed murder, but he started when Adam reached over and tapped his knee. Adam caught his eye, and Ronan followed his gaze up to Gansey’s blank face.

“Oh, shit,” said Ronan, tossing the recorder to Noah and twisting around toward the couch. “Hey, Gansey.”

He shook Gansey’s shoulder, and Gansey blinked. He turned to look at Ronan, spoon propped in the ice cream container. “What?”

Ronan snatched up his journal and snapped it shut. “Stop staring at your fucking scrapbook page about your _fucking death_.”

Gansey dropped his eyes, shame creeping red across his cheeks. “Sorry. I didn't mean to. I was just thinking about tomorrow night, and -”

“And how it's all about _death_?” Ronan slapped the notebook down on the rug, out of Gansey’s reach. “Yeah, asshole, and a lot of good that's gonna fucking do you if you go into a fucking fugue state before you get to talk to anyone.”

Gansey moved to reposition himself on the couch, eyes low, and Adam’s breath caught when he winced and swallowed hard at the movement. “I don’t feel too good,” he said softly, looking up at Ronan, and Ronan scoffed.

“Yeah, I fucking bet.”

He pulled himself to his feet with a noise of exasperation, grabbed the ice cream from Gansey’s lap, and stormed into the kitchen/bathroom/laundry, boots heavy on the hardwood. Gansey didn’t protest, just closed his eyes and tipped his head back. From his angle on the floor, Adam could see where Gansey’s ordinarily soft stomach was pushed out with food beneath his T-shirt, taut and unnatural. Adam drew blood between his teeth.

On the couch, Gansey shifted his hips with a soft whimper. The look on his face was of complete, abject misery, and it tugged on something in Adam. They’d all been in the room while Gansey had fallen apart behind his façade, and none of them had noticed in time to head it off.

He looked around for Noah, but he was gone. Adam hadn't heard or seen him get up, but then, he had hardly been paying attention to Noah. Carefully, gently, he pulled himself up onto the couch beside Gansey’s feet. He did his best not to jostle the cushions, but Gansey made a little sound anyway. Adam wasn't sure if it was pain or humiliation.

“Are you okay?” he asked, drawing his knees to his chest to give Gansey more room.

Gansey shrugged, then nodded, a tough, joyless smile spackled across his face. “Just ate too much. I'll be all right.”

Adam tried not to look curious, or vindicated. “Does it hurt?”

Gansey hiccuped and winced. “Something awful.”

This seemed a more honest answer than Gansey would usually give about his own discomfort, so Adam accepted it. They both watched Ronan stomp into his room and then out again, something dangling from his hand. Gansey sighed. A belch welled out of him that he made no attempt to stifle, and Adam fought to keep his face expressionless as Gansey’s cheeks flushed.  

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and Adam shrugged. “You must think I’m a horrible glutton.”

Adam felt his lips curl. “Maybe,” he said after a moment. “But not because of this. Mostly because of all the other times I’ve seen you eat.”

He meant it lightly, a means of diffusing whatever crippling embarrassment Gansey appeared to be experiencing, and a flush of satisfaction suffused him when Gansey cracked a small smile.

“Can I do anything?” Adam asked, and his gaze got stuck on the expanse of Gansey’s stomach, the thin white cotton of his undershirt pulled flat but for the indent of his navel. He wanted to reach out, spread his hand as wide as it would go and see how much was still left uncovered.

Gansey raised and lowered one shoulder. “Rubbing it helps sometimes, but I’m not going to ask you to do that.”

Adam nodded. Gansey was cautious in touching Adam, but he always seemed to place more importance on giving Adam the option not to return his physical gestures. The idea of actually reaching out, pressing his hand against Gansey’s stomach and _feeling it_ , was tempting in a way that overwhelmed him in its simplicity. All he had to do was reach out -

But he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that if he touched Gansey once, he’d grab. He’d never stop thinking about it, never stop wanting it. He would gorge himself on that feeling the way he’d watched Gansey gorge on pizza and gelato and burgers for eighteen months, and he would not be able to turn it off.

But Adam Parrish didn’t have much to gorge himself on, and his willpower was never weaker than it was with Gansey, and feelings, after all, were a cheap vice.

So he reached out.

He could feel the heat of Gansey’s skin through the cotton, and he kept his eyes low so he wouldn’t have to see Gansey watching him. Gansey’s stomach was firm in a way that it didn’t usually look, and it filled Adam’s head with a dizzying sensory suggestion of what it might feel like when he wasn’t so full. He pressed down gently, just to see what would happen, and Gansey whined. Adam lifted his hand, raising his eyes to Gansey’s briefly in apology.

“Gentler,” murmured Gansey, and Adam nodded. Gansey burped again, covering his mouth a second too late, and groaned.

Adam splayed his hand as much as he could, covering the dent of Gansey’s navel, his thumb brushing the part of his stomach that edged close to the hem of his T-shirt, where it was softer. He rubbed, very gently, and Gansey made a soft, intoxicating little sound that Adam drank in and swallowed.

And then there was the thud of Ronan’s boots on the hardwood, and Adam yanked his hand away. He curled into himself, clutching his own hands, and hoped he’d been fast enough that Ronan didn’t see.

“Here,” said Ronan unceremoniously, looming over the back of the couch. Gansey tensed, as if expecting something else to be dropped on him, but instead Ronan handed over an old-fashioned hot water bottle wrapped in a rather manky dishtowel. Adam looked from the water bottle up to Ronan inquisitively - it was the sort of thing he would have expected Gansey to own, but not Ronan - but he kept quiet.

“Thanks,” said Gansey, relief evident in the way his brow evened out, and the little moan and hiccup he let out when he pressed the hot compress to his swollen stomach made both Adam and Ronan tense up.

Ronan scrubbed a hand over his shaved head. “Parrish, you need a ride home?”

“My bike’s in the back of the Pig,” said Adam, but Gansey, eyes closed, shook his head.

“Still raining. Let him drive you.”

“I guess I do,” said Adam, and Ronan nodded. Gansey moved one hand from his stomach and propped it on the back of the couch to bump fists with Adam, and Adam caught his eye.

“See you in Latin,” he said, and Gansey nodded.

Ronan flicked the side of Gansey’s head, though Adam could tell it was gentle. “ _Stultus asinum_ ,” he said, and crossed to grab his leather jacket from his room.

Noah poked his head out of his own room as they passed and threw a glance toward the couch. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Don’t let him eat anything else,” said Ronan, and Noah bristled.

“I know!”

Ronan shrugged. “You’re a pushover,” he said, and Adam bumped fists with Noah before following Ronan out of Monmouth to wrestle his bike out of the Camaro’s trunk and into the BMW’s.

They were silent for most of the drive, the electro-synth music blaring from Ronan’s stereo obliterating the space for conversation. Adam replayed the night in staccato clips in his head - watching Gansey take the stairs to Monmouth. The way he’d pulled his shirt over his head. Draping his legs over Ronan’s, reaching for another slice of pizza. The wince when he’d tried to move, the moment he and Adam and Ronan had all realized at once that he’d overeaten to the point of pain. The sound he’d made when Adam touched him.

Adam let his brain chew on it and swallow, over and over, digest it. Maybe it was easier for Gansey to be so carefree about food when he had so many other worries running in the background simultaneously. Maybe that’s why it was such a comfort to him, such a pleasure - there was no thought attached, one thing he could enjoy without any strings.

Adam wasn’t sure how deep his feelings for Gansey ran, nor was he sure entirely what they were, but he knew that now, with these new observations, every meal he watched Gansey eat would become an even deeper fascination. They’d end up at Nino’s again within the week, and he’d work on observing further, see if he could chart the differences between Gansey eating for pleasure or anxiety. He’d like to know where the limits for pleasure lay, he thought. He’d like to test that out.

He sank into the thought, the bass of Ronan’s music enveloping him into a daydreamer’s cocoon. But as the road turned to dirt beneath the tires of the BMW, Ronan lowered the volume on the stereo and turned to Adam.

“You going to Gansey’s churchyard bullshit tomorrow night?” he asked. His voice was rough, offhanded, but there was something in his tone that softened the edge of the words - fondness, maybe, except Adam wasn’t sure yet if Ronan was capable of fondness.

“I have to work,” said Adam, watching Ronan from the corner of his eye. “Are you?”

Ronan scoffed. “I don't fuck with ghosts,” he said. “I think he wants to be alone anyway.”

“Does he do that often?” Adam asked after a moment, and when Ronan met his eyes, it was clear that he knew Adam was not referring to the churchyard, or to fucking with ghosts, or to being alone.

Ronan shrugged, moving his eyes from Adam’s to the road. “He has his shit, I have mine. We don't talk about it.”

Adam nodded. Ronan turned the music back up.

The BMW crunched over the gravel scattered over the dirt as they neared Adam’s parents’ trailer, and Ronan eased on the brake.

He cleared his throat, eyes ranging out into the darkness before them. “If you get off work or whatever tomorrow, and you want to come over to Monmouth after, Gansey won't be there, obviously, but me and Noah will.” He cleared his throat again. “You know. If you want.”

Adam had never set foot in Monmouth without an explicit invitation from Gansey to assure of him of his welcome. He liked Noah well enough, and a large enough part of him wanted to like Ronan well enough, too, it was just - it always felt more like he was Gansey’s friend than all three of theirs.

“It might be late,” said Adam. “It’s an inventory shift.”

Ronan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” said Adam, pulling his backpack into his lap. “Maybe I will.”  
  
  



End file.
